TORY leader Kemi Badenoch and her shadow defence secretary James Cartlidge, at their party conference this week, ramped up the war rhetoric unveiling plans for an Israeli-style ‘Iron Dome’ to prepare Britain for imminent war with Russia.
In his speech to the conference, Cartlidge committed a future Tory government to spending £10 billion on a defence system that was originally announced as an ‘Iron Dome’, placing it in the same category as the US-financed Israeli system, but was quickly changed to the title ‘Britannia Shield’.
He told the conference: ‘Today, I’m announcing that the next Conservative government would deliver the most significant upgrade to UK air defence for generations.’
Cartlidge insisted that the £10 billion Britannia Shield ‘is totally necessary because of the threats we face and only possible because of our willingness to take tough decisions to fund defence.’
Speaking later at the conference, Badenoch insisted: ‘The first duty of government is to defend the country and keep people safe’ something she said Labour is failing to do.
She went on: ‘The world will not wait for Britain to get ready… War has returned to Europe. Missiles and drones are transforming warfare in the Middle East.’
Badenoch has spent most of the Tory conference issuing dire warnings about war threats from Russia.
On Monday morning, she said Britain must be ready for war by the end of the decade claiming: ‘It is time to get ready for the threat’ saying: ‘Our own government intelligence assessment says that Russia will attack a NATO country by 2030 and that drags us in.’
Badenoch was clear on how the Tories plan to raise the £10 billion required to fund their Iron Dome – by drastic cuts to welfare spending.
She announced last month a ‘ruthless crackdown’ on benefits, vowing to cut £23 billion from the welfare budget.
In fact, her continuous beating of the war drum echoes precisely the position of the Labour government.
Last month, Labour’s defence secretary Wes Streeting proclaimed that the UK faces its ‘greatest risk’ of war with Russia and, speaking at the recent Labour Party conference, he announced ‘the biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the Cold War’.
Prime minister Andy Burnham meanwhile ramped up the war rhetoric against Iran.
Yesterday he repeated the claim that Iran was ‘likely’ behind the farcical ‘terrorist’ plot aimed at the US air force bombers stationed at RAF Fairford.
As usual, Burnham provided no evidence to back up this claim, a charge completely refuted by the Iranians, simply claiming ‘secret information’.
The same secret information led US president Donald Trump to pull his bombers out of Fairford and flee the UK.
It is the fear of the minor UK and European imperialist nations of being dumped by Trump and left to fight on their own in a war started by the NATO war machine, intended to weaken Russia, that is causing panic amongst the ruling class and their political representatives.
This has led to increasingly strident warnings and demands for the UK to be put on a war footing, with the working class and youth expected to pick up the bill.
With US imperialism facing defeat in its war on Iran the world is indeed being dragged into a world war – not by Russia or Iran but by a capitalist system that in its final death agony is preparing to drag humanity down with it in a nuclear holocaust.
The working class will never accept this as its fate, and today it faces the immediate issue of resolving this crisis by smashing capitalism and advancing humanity to a socialist society.
This demands the building up of the WRP and Young Socialists in the UK and sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International in every country to provide the leadership necessary to mobilise the full strength of the working class to bring down their capitalist governments and go forward to workers governments and socialism.
